It’s good to share
Nigel Atherton looks back at past AP issues
13 September 1977
LADIES and gentlemen, I present the world’s smallest 35mm SLRs. Like regular SLRs but shrunk, like our cover model’s shorts, to tiny proportions. Step aside, Olympus, the Pentax ME and MX have stolen your crown. If you think modern cameras are expensive the manual-only Pentax MX cost £209.95, which is £1,526 in today’s money. In Rex Hayman’s review the MX’s meter didn’t work, but he considered that a blessing. ‘The sample I examined at Photokina had all its LEDs working, and frankly I found the
ve glowing coloured spots distracting.’ he confessed. Editor Martin Hodder was troubled by the new arrivals. ‘Sophistication and miniaturisation do not necessarily go together,’ he opined, adding: ‘What we want, surely, are rst rate cameras of manageable proportions.’ George Hughes reviewed an Arts Council commissioned book on British society with images by the likes of Ian Berry and Josef Koudelka. After complaining that British Image 2 painted an incomplete picture of the Brits he had a change of heart in the third paragraph; ‘Come off it, Hughes, it isn’t meant to be complete!’ he chastised himself. ‘You’re quite right old chap: I am being a tri e hasty, so let’s begin again.’
Incidentally, 160 of this issue’s 204 pages were ads. The issue you are holding has just 19 ad pages and 49 editorial.